Pages

Thursday, 31 December 2015

Since we’re at the point where Disney has such a monopoly on
the world’s entertainment, making a statement like “They’re having a good year”
would be rather redundant. It’d be like saying General Electric has made a
profit; it sets off ‘no shit’ alarms pretty quickly. That said, even for a
company as prolific as Disney, this has been an amazing year for them: The
continuingsuccess of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Inside Out, the latest iteration of Cinderella and let’s not
forget the hype singularity that is The Force Awakens. And even outside of
their commercial write-ups, their average for quality has been far better than
previous years; hell, my top two films of the year are both Disney properties.
So, considering all that, I can think of no better way to close out the year
than with a look at another release from the House of the Mouse. So, for the
first part of the finale of my insane month of reviews, let’s take a look at
Pixar’s second release for the year:
This is The Good Dinosaur.

The plot: In an alternate history, where the asteroid that
caused the extinction of the dinosaurs never hit the Earth, said dinosaurs have
continued to grow and thrive and have even evolved to the point of being able
to speak. Arlo (Raymond Ochoa), an Apatosaurus, lives on a farm with his father
Henry (Jeffrey Wright), his mother Ida (Frances McDormand), his brother Buck
(Marcus Scribner) and his sister Libby (Maleah Padilla). When a freak accident
causes Arlo to be washed away in the nearby river, alongside a human child he
named Spot (Jack Bright), Arlo must traverse the dangerous prehistoric
landscape and make it back home safely.

Pixar, when they are legitimately trying, can come up with
some truly gorgeous CGI that stands as a testament to the art form. The
animation here, at least for the scenery, is seriously close to Walking With Dinosaurs-level quality. The weather effects, the texturing, the fact that they
gave some form of character to different types of water; this is easily some of the best I’ve seen from this studio
with a lot of photorealistic detailing. The dinosaur designs, on the other
hand, aren’t as good. Not to say that
they’re bad, far from it, just that it feels a little too cartoonish when put
on top of the beautifully realized backgrounds. That said, credit is definitely
deserved for how they didn’t immediately go for the easy designs for the
dinosaurs. Apart from a few of the more recognizable creatures, we’ve also got
some nice mid-transition looks like the semi-chickens that Arlo and his family
farm for I’m guessing the eggs. Yeah, even with how well they portrayed that
farm in relation to those dinosaurs without dialogue, some bits of it don’t
hold up as well as others.

Speaking of what is portrayed without dialogue, I once again
have to congratulate a studio that has the nerve to use the visual medium in a family film. While
there is dialogue, and it is mostly well-written and delivered, a lot of the
more crucial points are delivered just through what we see. There are two
examples in this film that are genuinely heart-melting in how they handle
emotion through the visuals, and oddly enough they’re both incredibly sad
moments. One of them is how the first on-screen death is handled, which is very
sombre and tear-jerking without needing to even say “I’m sorry. _____ is dead.”
The other involves Arlo trying to explain the idea of ‘family’ to Spot using
sticks in the ground. Very little dialogue, most of which is comprised of the
word “family”, and it is easily one of the most emotionally hard-hitting
moments I’ve seen all year.

During the first act, while definitely being impressed by
the animation and music, I couldn’t help but feel that this is the kind of
story that seriously didn’t even need to involve dinosaurs. It basically plays
out like a Western, even includes herding cattle alongside Sam Elliott as a
T-Rex, with hints of the ‘boy and his pet’ sub-genre mixed in there as well.
But as the film progresses, a thought started to sneak in: What if you replaced the dinosaurs with
humans and played this as a live-action Western? Maybe have Spot be played by a
dog or a wolf alongside our farm boy Arlo. Well, if that was the film that we
got, it most certainly would not be
marketed towards kids.

This is an especially dark story in that light, considering
some of the characters that Arlo runs into along the way. We have Thunderclap
(Steve Zahn) and his fellow pterodactyls that worship “the Storm” and basically
act like a surrogate for Christian ministers, rescuing people from the
aftermath of a natural disaster. Of course, ministers aren’t usually known for eating those that they rescue in those
situations. Add to that the story of how Butch (Sam Elliott) got the scar on
his face and a threat he makes to Arlo at one point, and all of a sudden this
is a Wild West story involving cannibals. There’s also casual decapitation of
an insect by Spot, the insect in question being about three times his size, and
Arlo and Spot being the first creatures in human history to get drunk (or
possibly stoned) after eating rotten fruit. Basically, this film stands as a
monument to exactly how much can be snuck by kids when the right facades are
put in place. In all honesty, I have to commend the filmmakers for creating an
incredibly dark cowboy tale and wrapping it up in a child-friendly package.

Here’s the weird thing, though. I know that applying that
same mindset of swapping the surrogate creature with a human can make a lot of
different tales a lot more adult by comparison. However, the reason why I use
it in this case is because I think the filmmakers want us to see that way to a certain degree. Spot’s very canine
mannerisms and movements, right down to shaking his leg when he gets scratched,
Arlo and his family’s very human-looking farm, the Southern accents given to
most of the scavenging dinosaurs (whom usually want to eat the main characters)
and even how the T-Rexs’ movements resembling a man riding a horse, much like a
cattle rancher would; in a few subtle and not-so-subtle ways, the film is
trying to humanize the characters and settings it presents to us. Under normal
circumstances, the attempts to humanize these dinosaurs combined with the
gruesome implications would make me question exactly how child-friendly this
film really is. Of course, I’m the kind of filmgoer who loves the dark and
unexpected; I can only see this as a selling point, really.

All in all, I freaking love
this movie. It’s essentially a gruesome coming-of-age Western disguised as a
children’s film, portrayed through excellent voice acting, spectacular
animation and writing that manages to work both on a surface level and as a
nice serving of Fridge Horror. This may not be the best Pixar film ever, but
that doesn’t mean that this should be completely discarded like it seems likely
to be. This is still quality Pixar work that deserves to be seen. It’s better
than Straight Outta Compton as, even considering my own love for all things
hip-hop, that falls short of the tremendous respect this generates for the
sheer balls this film has. However, even with that in mind, the utter fascination
created by The Death Of “Superman Lives” wins out in comparison.

The short that precedes the film, Sanjay’s Super Team, is an
encapsulated bit of just how amazing Pixar can be. The animation, the pacing,
the juxtaposition of Hindu religious icons and modern-day superheroes and the
questions that such a comparison raises; this more than holds up to the
company’s pedigree for shorts.

Wednesday, 30 December 2015

When Saw first came out to phenomenal box office returns,
people soon became familiar with director James Wan’s supposed ‘torture porn’
style. After taking a producing role for the rest of the series, and his
subsequent releases Dead Silence and Death Sentence barely received any
critical attention (let alone positive
attention), it seemed like he was going to stuck with that label for the rest
of his professional career, if it would even survive beyond all that. Then came
Insidious in 2009, and audiences took note. Rather than the industrial grime
and twisted morals that have been attached to him thanks to the original Saw,
Insidious blasted its way into cinemas and showed off Wan’s true style:
Old-school horror thrills reminiscent of the haunted house flicks of the 70’s
and 80’s. After that film set a far better preconception for the man, he would
go on to even greater success with The Conjuring and even show his proficiency in genres outside of horror.
However, same year that Conjuring was released, he went back to that staple
that gave him the credit he desperately deserved… and critics weren’t all that
into it. Time to dive in and see if it really deserves the flack it got. This
is Insidious: Chapter 2.

The plot: Shortly after the events of the first film, Josh
(Patrick Wilson) has been possessed by a spirit from The Further. As his wife
Renai (Rose Byrne) and sons Dalton (Ty Simpkins) and Foster (Andrew Astor)
notice that he has been acting strangely since their encounter with the
Red-Faced Demon, his mother Lorraine (Barbara Hershey) calls in Specs (Leigh
Whannell) and Tucker (Angus Sampson) to help her get to the bottom of what is still haunting their family.

Patrick Wilson is still a great actor and, thankfully, the
character he’s playing this time kind of
is as well. Not only does he get to slip into his old shoes as Josh, he gets to
have some fun as Parker Crane, making for some nice Dolarhyde-lite thrills. Lin
Shaye was extremely distracting in the opening scene, where her voice was very
jarringly dubbed over Lindsay Seim playing a younger version of her character,
but her cheery attitude is still welcomed. Whannell and Sampson are still great
as the comic relief, even making for a legitimately touching moment when they
discuss how Elise’s death affected them, considering their line of work.

Despite its seriously goofy moments, particularly the
climactic encounter with the Red-Faced Demon, it still did wonders at producing
scares through more classical means. Now, James Wan’s old-school sensibilities
when it comes to horror only fully bloomed in The Conjuring, which came out
shortly before this film did; the original Insidious showed a good progression
towards that, but still a little frayed around the edges. This is a sequel that
producer Jason Blum (yes, it’s another one of his productions) and it shows, especially with how the camera and
editing have shifted between films. For some reason, they decided to go into
found footage-style cinematography, primarily in a scene where Specs and Tucker
are investigating Parker’s old house with their camcorders. Now, while that
scene in it of itself felt unnecessary, the found footage mechanics snuck into
the editing as well. In a lot of the Paranormal Activity films, especially the
earlier ones, the editing would look a bit jumpy like moments of dead air were
just cut right out of it. We have the same effect here, except not during the scene with POV camera
footage. As a result, we have a film that feels like it wants to be found
footage but isn’t.

Then again, this being shot in exactly the same way as the
original is kind of excusable. After
all, this film takes a different direction in comparison. Instead of focusing
so much on the atmosphere and being playing like a tribute to the traditional
haunted house flicks, this is more like a supernatural possession thriller that
pays tribute to a different kind of horror film. Namely, Josh/Parker’s
motivation feels like elements of Red Dragon got poured into the script,
crossed with The Cell given how he is taken down in the end. I like Whannell’s
talents when it comes to carrying narrative through a film series, and
admittedly this film does a decent job as a follow-up to the original in terms
of plot. However, that affinity isn’t enough to excuse how this film feels like
Wan’s influences are being pushed even closer to the surface than previously.
Then the film gets to Parker’s mother, and suddenly it becomes a cross between
Sleepaway Camp and Mommie Dearest. Unless you are a literal miracle worker,
that combination is always going to look silly. Really, the only consistent
element that has survived from the first film is the soundtrack… and given how
that includes the histrionic string section, which still made me laugh right at
the title sequence, that’s probably the last
thing I was anxious to see return for this movie.

All in all, it’s a good follow-up to the original, but not
that great a horror film on its own; it left me at a similar point that The Marked Ones did last year. The characters are still engaging, the story feels
like a good way to continue from the previous installment and there are some
decent moments of suspense, but ultimately it feels like it has strayed way too far from what made the first
film good in the first place. Now, we have unnecessary found footage elements
and performances and plot developments that clash heavily with the atmospheric
tone the film is still trying to set. It’s better than Upstream Color, as the
plot here isn’t nearly as irritatingly obtuse. However, since this ultimately
fell short as a horror film, it also falls short of Jack Reacher, which
succeeded in its primary genre.

Tuesday, 29 December 2015

I have so little a genuine opinion on the Chipmunks that,
for this review, I’m also going to squeeze in my thoughts on their last film as
well; mainly because my reactions to either of them aren’t enough for a full
review on their own. This is Alvin & The Chipmunks: Chipwrecked and The
Road Chip.

The plot: [Chipwrecked] While on a cruise, the Chipmunks
Alvin (Justin Long), Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler), Theodore (Jesse McCartney),
and the Chippettes Brittany (Christina Applegate), Jeanette (Anna Faris) and
Eleanor (Amy Poehler) end up going overboard and marooned on a desert island.
As they try and survive on the island, with the help of fellow castaway Zoe
(Jenny Slate), Dave (Jason Lee) and Ian (David Cross) have also found their way
onto the island.

The music, this time helmed by Devo front-man Mark
Mothersbaugh, isn’t as annoyingly over-produced as the previous films. The
covers are fewer this time around, with a couple of original pop songs included
like LMFAO’s Party Rock Anthem, but they are at least enjoyable here. More so
than before, at the very least.

Rather than focusing so much on the music, this film seems
to be making an active attempt at character growth, particularly for Alvin
because there’s a reason that he is named in the band. Through a frankly absurd
concept involving Simon and the effects of a venomous spider bite, we
unfortunately don’t get Spider-Munk
and instead get him turning into a faux-French explorer called Simone (now
voiced by Alan Tudyk, not that you’d notice). Because of this, Alvin is forced
to realize just how much he has been annoying the audience… I mean Dave, by
proxy. Not that any of this actually pulls through as the writing and acting
aren’t quite strong enough to make the idea work too well. However, because this
shows that the writers are actually trying
this time around, this automatically is the best of the series so far. Don’t
read too heavily into that, though.

The comedy, while a marked improvement, still reaches
desperate levels on more than a few occasions. Maybe it’s just more
embarrassing watching this three years after the fact, but the internet meme
reference jokes are especially painful to sit through: Honey badger, double
rainbow, Charlie Sheen “winning”? This is dangerously close to Seltzerberg style
humour, a comparison I most certainly do not make lightly. This isn’t helped by
the presence of Zoe, who is crazed without being engaging, a combination that
should not be possible.

All in all, I will admit to being surprised that this wasn’t
completely awful, but that doesn’t mean it’s particularly good either. Credit
where it’s due for attempting to give some character growth, the improved music
quality and a couple of moments that legitimately made me laugh, but this only
makes it better than its predecessors, not exactly a high mark to reach. This
series may have a while yet before I can call it “good”, but it’s at least
showing signs of improvement. It’s worse than Red Tails as, even with its
standard George Lucas writing faults, it still made for a more entertaining
watch overall. However, this film still showed at least some effort was made, which honestly made it work better than The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

The plot: [The Road Chip] As Dave gets closer to his
girlfriend Samantha (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), and the Chipmunks get closer
to her vicious son Miles (Josh Green), Alvin and Miles realize that if the Dave
and Samantha get married, they’ll be stuck with each other. Not wanting this to
happening, they take a road trip to Miami, where Dave is producing music for
pop star Ashley grey (Bella Thorne), to stop him from proposing.

After being pleased about the lack of LMFAO in the last
film, imagine my chagrin at seeing RedFoo in the first scene of the film.
Sometimes, it actively feels like a film is taunting me. Other than that, this
continues the previous film’s path of downplaying the song covers and the music
in general. While kind of strange, and ultimately making the idea of another
Chipmunks movie redundant, the music is usually weak anyway so I won’t complain
too much. That said, the music here
is honestly a lot better than I was expecting. While a lot of the songs are
bland and pretty forgettable, this film totally makes up for it in a single
scene. Now, full disclosure here, the main reason I was dreading this film was
because of how badly they butchered Uptown Funk in the trailer; if you can make
that song sound bad, you’re in deep
trouble. Then the actual scene with Uptown Funk happens in the film and,
between the genuine energy on-screen and the brass-heavy instrumentation, I
actually… enjoyed myself? Yeah, probably the last thing I was expecting to
think while watching a Chipmunks film, but it happened. Based on that alone,
the music checks out with me.

This is a road trip movie, so plot isn’t important in
comparison to the set pieces that take place during it. Honestly, it’s just the
same schtick from the last three films for most of it: Alvin causes mischief,
Simon is the straight man and Theodore talks about food; set on shuffle for 90
minutes and you’re sorted. To shake things up at least a little, we have the
initially sadistic Miles, whose personality slowly disappears the more he warms
up to the Chipmunks, Bella Thorne as Ashley showing up in a couple of scenes
(and not singing, despite playing a pop star) and barely featuring the
Chippettes. Yeah, they’re hosting American Idol for most of the film, save for
the obligatory musical number at the end, and completely absent from the events
of the film. Means less flat characters to write for, so that ultimately ends
up doing the film a service.

That also means that there is more room for Agent Suggs, who
is easily the best part of the movie. Rather than just go through the film like
he’s just doing it for the pay check like David Cross did, Tony Hale gives a
Christopher Walken in The Country Bears performance and plays it dead straight.
Thanks to how well he manages with his lines, he immediately raises the mood of
every scene he’s in; he kind of makes the film worth watching just for him
alone. Oh, and to see John Waters in a cameo where they name-drop Pink
Flamingos. You know what, I’d normally question what kind of parents/kids it
would take to get that reference, but I’ll let it pass because that was
probably the funniest part of the entire film.

All in all, I can’t believe I’m about to say this but this
was actually not that bad. The music, when we actually get it, is passable and
even legitimately good in parts; good to see Mark Mothersbaugh start to redeem
himself, given what else he’s been attached to lately. The jokes are only just
above par for the series as a whole but, thanks to Agent Suggs carrying this
film on his back in his scenes, I’d almost recommend this film just to see Tony
Hale be entertainingly insane for every scene he’s in. Almost. It’s worse than Dumb & Dumber To, as this has nowhere
near the kind of comedic timing or even intellect of that film. However, since
the few good points about this film are legitimately good, this still fares
better than the anti-musical Strange Magic.

Monday, 28 December 2015

I hate Rotten Tomatoes. Despite how it’s widely considered
to be a good barometer for how good/bad a film is, it’s surprisingly broken if
you actually look at the scores. Some of the reviews that are listed as Fresh
or Rotten, if you actually look at even the blurbs on the site itself, are
extremely arbitrary, the actual
overall score is tucked away underneath the big percentage rate, and said
percentage only amounts to how many people liked a film vs. disliked a film.
Not how much, just whichever way their opinion falls. For a site that’s meant
to help show an overall opinion, being misleading is probably the worst thing
you can do. However, with that said, they are especially good in one certain
area: The 0%; the films that absolutely no-one
defended. Given how this illustrious list includes films like C Me Dance, Fred:
The Movie, A Thousand Words and Keith Lemon: The Film, easily some of the worst
films I’ve ever seen, that integer still carries a lot of weight. So, what does
that say when today’s subject is only one of the three released by Happy
Madison Productions to have received a 0%? I mean, that’s means that this is
even worse than The Master Of Disguise, That’s My Boy and Paul Blart: Mall Cop,
among so many others? Is this truly that bad? Time to, reluctantly, find out.
This is The Ridiculous Six.

The plot: Tommy Stockburn (Adam Sandler) is a white man who
has been raised by Native Americans under the name ‘White Knife’, after his
mother was killed by an outlaw. When his estranged father Frank (Nick Nolte)
arrives in his village, and is subsequently kidnapped by Frank’s former
partner-in-crime Cicero (Danny Trejo), Tommy sets out to obtain enough money to
secure his freedom. Along the way, he comes across five of his half-brothers:
Burro rider Ramon (Rob Schneider), farm hand Lil’ Pete (Taylor Lautner),
mountain man Herm (Jorge Garcia), former Presidential bodyguard Danny (Luke
Wilson) and saloon musician Chico (Terry Crews). Together, the Ridiculous Six
set a blazing trail across the West, robbing every do-no-gooder they come
across.

This is easily the most literal one-joke cast of so-called
characters I’ve seen all year; not even Superfast! was this bad. We’ve got
Sandler as the badass knife-slinger with Native American powers, because it’d
be a true miracle if he didn’t stroke his own ego in one of his own films (not
to mention his wife Jackie as Never Wears Bra), Lautner as Simple Jack with
even less dignity, and Schneider as Ramon, the Mexican who lugs around a donkey
with diarrhea. Then there’s the just-plain weird ideas, like John Turturro as
Abner Doubleday who spends his entire scene inventing baseball, and Vanilla Ice
as a gangsta posturing Mark Twain. Rather than simply point out how all of
these characters are bizarre, and not in any of the good ways, I’m going to
throw this film its ounce of mercy and say that some of these characters could have worked in better hands.
Wilson as Danny could’ve made for some funny moments given his backstory, and
Crews is usually a saving grace in
any film he’s in, and even Harvey Keitel’s bar owner was at least semi-engaging
for the one segment he was in. However, this isn’t the League Of Gentlemen we’re
talking about here, who are more than capable of turning basic one-note
caricatures into truly fleshed out characters; this is Happy Madison territory.
Quite frankly, I should be thankful that Sandler is able to play the straight
man as well as he does throughout this film, making for the only consistently
watchable performance in the entire production.

There is no plot here. Despite whatever synopsis I gave
earlier, there is no actual logical progression of events to be seen here.
Instead, it’s like Sandler and co-writer Tim Herlihy had a bunch of ideas for
gags in a Western setting and just constructed the robbery angle to string them
all together. It’s more video game than film in terms of plot: PCs need X
amount of money, follow path given through clues by NPCs while robbing towns
till you reach X. Now, once again, this would be perfectly fine if it weren’t
for two key problems. First off, some of these one-off scenes are insanely
out-of-place. Some of them like the poker game with General Custer (David
Spade) and Mark Twain are surreal, but acceptable. The whole baseball sequence
is incredibly jarring, even for how silly the rest of the film is, and ends up
doing nothing more than putting another nail into John Turturro’s career as an
actor.

The other problem is one that you probably would have guessed
as soon as the words ‘Adam Sandler’ were brought up: It’s not funny. Actually,
scratch that, it isn’t just that it’s not funny; it’s that this is that special
brand of not funny that constantly sabotages its own jokes. Whenever there was
even the slightest inkling of a good joke and/or punchline, it is dragged out
to the point of no jocular return and then dragged even further to make sure
that even the back row got the joke. Insert your own snipe about the
intelligence levels of people who watch Happy Madison productions and them
needing to have the joke explained here because, unlike an unsettling amount of
critics out there, I’m not so big an asshole as to call people stupid and/or
retarded because of their tastes in pop culture.

Okay… need to take a breather. How about we discuss the
supposed ‘message’ behind this film? Between Tommy’s upbringing to the ethnic
diversity of the Ridiculous Six itself, it seems to want to make some sort of
statement about the racist attitudes of the time, or even those shown by past
Western cinema. However, much like when Sandler tried to use his comedy for a
better social purpose with I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, this indulges
in those same stereotypes far too much to make any pretence of commentary
viable. Between all the sexist, racist and even ableist gags used throughout,
it feels more like the attempts at ‘satire’ are more like a scapegoat so that
Sandler can do the exact same thing over again like he has with some of his
worse films.

All in all, this is not
a 0%. To say that this film is worse than the shockingly offensive That’s My
Boy or the excruciatingly vacuous Paul Blart: Mall Cop is laughable. However,
that by no means makes this a good
film. Out of all the Happy Madison productions I’ve seen this year, even those
that I stepped up to defend in whatever small way, this is easily the worst.
Between its lazy characterization, its abysmal pacing and jarring tonal shifts,
there is literally nothing to be salvaged from this aside from a couple of
barely-audible chuckles. It’s worse than The Wedding Ringer, as that film at
least had a decent stretch of watchable content; this just coasts on lameness
for its two-hour running time.
However, this wasn’t nearly as draining to sit through as Aloha.

Sunday, 27 December 2015

Every year, thousands of films go into production all over
the world. Some get global releases, others are more local, some go
straight-to-DVD, others to online outlets, and some just don’t get released at
all or, at the very least, get delayed countless times from being released. But
then there are times when, for one reason or another, production just stops
dead. All that work done by the numerous cast and crew members to realizing an
artistic vision, all those man hours that goes into the concepts and attempts
to actualize them, all that potential for could very well be a masterpiece;
just gone to pot. There are a lot of stories like this, particularly in the
realm of superhero movies: The third Joel Schumacher-helmed Batman film with
Courtney Love as Harley Quinn; the Green Lantern film starring Jack Black in
the lead role; all those Spider-Man spin-offs and sequels Sony had planned
before Amazing Spider-Man 2 turned off the entire world. However, far more than
any other, there is one story that has captured the minds of a lot of film and
comic book geeks: A collaboration between the poster child for modern-day
Goths, the biggest comic geek-turned-filmmaker and an actor known for his
legendary scenery-chewing. This is The Death Of Superman Lives: What Happened?

The plot: In 1996, Kevin Smith approached producer Jon
Peters with a different take on a Superman film, based on a subpar script he
had obtained called ‘Superman Reborn’. Based off of the classic Superman comic
book story ‘The Death Of Superman’, it was set to have Tim Burton as director
and Nicolas Cage as the Man of Steel himself. Director Jon Schnepp, through
access to the many writers and conceptual artists that were attached to the
film as well as the original artworks, looks into the behind-the-scenes story
of Superman Lives, the film that was never was.

There were three key writers involved in the production of
Superman Lives: Kevin Smith, Wesley Strick who wrote not only the Doom movie
but also the Nightmare On Elm Street remake, and Dan Gilroy, who wowed everyone
with his work on Nightcrawler last year. Knowing Smith’s history concerning his
Q&As and the fascinating stories he has to tell, bringing him on to talk
for a documentary is already an amazing step forward. He recounts his now-infamous
story about meeting Jon Peters and his reactions to the guy’s phenomenally
weird and pretty stupid ideas, only now we have footage of Peters himself
corroborating most of it. Something about the notion that Peters legitimately
wanted a giant spider fighting Superman or polar bears fighting Brainiac or
that he would have liked Tim Burton’s Batman to have the titular hero say “I’m
Batman, motherfucker!” is instantly hilarious. Strick gives some decent tidbits
about his involvement in the crux of the film’s production after Smith had
left, but he does seem to fall in-between two far more interesting interviewees
because Gilroy gives some great insight into why production ultimately got
pulled. Considering how badly Warner Bros. was doing financially at the time,
and how much of a risk they were taking on Burton’s vision of Superman at the
budget they had projected, it unfortunately makes sense that it didn’t go
forward.

Since this film largely exists in the conceptual stage, it
makes sense that a lot of the original conceptual artists would be asked to
give their two cents on the production. This is easily the most fascinating
aspect of the film, as the audience is given a surprisingly in-depth look into
what ideas were being put into it. The concept art showed a lot of promise for
what would have been at the very least an interesting take on the character,
which is helped by some animation and even a bit of live-action re-enactments
of some of the more visual ideas. Said live-action segments literally look like
they were filmed alongside an episode of the Nostalgia Critic, but that attempt
to visually present those ideas for consumption is appreciated nonetheless. The
amount of effort that was put into the suit alone is great to watch, as they
detail the different materials and lighting configurations that, when you see
the suit itself, actually look pretty damn good. Like, even considering this
was all done during the late 90’s, this holds up. It also helps that there is
no bias when it comes to what ideas are presented in the documentary, as we get
a good sampling of the good (Drawings for Krypton), bad (early concepts for the
black Kryptonian suit) and just plain weird (Brainiac with Christopher Walken’s
face).

Were it that this film was made, it certainly would’ve been
a paradigm shifter given how ambitious it is. However, what makes this even
more compelling is just how influential this non-existent film has become if
you really think about it. A lot of the concepts for Brainiac where he is
essentially a human head with spider legs ended up being used in another
fashion, given how Humma Kavula turned out in the 2005 Hitchhiker’s Guide To
The Galaxy movie. Kevin Spacey was originally slated to be Lex Luthor, a role
he would end up taking in Superman Returns and ultimately becoming the best
part of that entire film. But probably the most telling, and the reason why
this film was released at easily the best time possible, is the approach to
Superman himself. The crew behind the production clearly wanted to create a
darker version of Superman than people were used to, similar to what Burton
himself did with Batman. This idea of treating Superman the same way they did
Batman, at the end of the day, is the same mindset that went into 2013’s Man Of
Steel as well as the upcoming Batman Vs. Superman film. Burton did agree to the project because, given
how Superman is more a creature of sunlight than the gloomier characters that
he is used to, he wanted to challenge himself and learn from the experience.
However, that doesn’t affect how that aspect still remains in a lot of what the
other interviewees mentioned: A darker, possibly grittier version of the
character that would be based on a story line where the character would die.
Given how badly Man Of Steel turned out, and how extremely disheartening BVS
looks just from the trailers, it’s kind of disheartening that this didn’t get made but that film is
going ahead.

All in all, this is an utterly fascinating look into the
filmmaking process for a film that, unfortunately, didn’t even get to the stage
of filming. The use of concept art and expert use of editing (seriously, this
might be the best edited film of the year) to further illustrate what the film could have looked like is excellently
handled, the interviewees all bring interesting quips about its background and
the timing, given how close we are to the latest iteration of Superman on film,
couldn’t have been better. For those with any interest in what goes on
behind-the-scenes for a film, or just those that wondered how Nicolas Cage as
the Man of Steel could’ve gone, I highly recommend checking this one out. It’s
better than Straight Outta Compton, purely based on how well this did at
portraying a story that never reached its finale as opposed to dramatizing a
true event. However, it ranks just below Truth because, as well-constructed as
this film is, it falls short of the genuinely amazing dialogue of that film.

Saturday, 26 December 2015

When a person is discovered to have what is considered
above-average intelligence, there is a certain expectation that they will
fulfill their potential. Now, to a degree, this is understandable: Knowing how
many truly stupid people exist in the world, it really would be a shame if
someone with genuine intellect would just let it go to waste. But then, there’s
the side effects that that kind of expectation can have on the person in
question. I remember my last day of Year 10 excruciatingly well, as probably
one of the best and one of the worst
of my entire school career. Somehow, and I still don’t know how, I managed to
top the class in my English School Certificate. The next year, I was “heavily
advised” to go into the Advanced class, despite my best wishes. This would end
up culminating in my HSC two years later, which officially broke me because not
only was it clearly beyond my abilities, but that I was expected to pass it by
my teachers. Sure, hindsight is a miracle worker and let me understand that all
that work really doesn’t mean jack shit later on in life, but in a vacuum it is
a horrific experience. Keep that idea of the supposed responsibility to one’s
own intelligence as we get into today’s subject. This is X+Y, otherwise known
as A Brilliant Young Mind.

The plot: Nathan (Asa Butterfield) is a teenaged mathematics
prodigy, whose main goal is to make it into the International Mathematics
Olympiad. With the tutelage of former maths Olympian Martin (Rafe Spall) and
the support of his mother Julie (Sally Hawkins), he makes it to a maths camp
that will decide if he is one of the six to make it to the IMO. However, when
confronted with others like him, he finds that he may not be ready for the
social possibilities presented to him.

Asa Butterfield previously knocked the socks off of the
critical masses with his turn as the lead in Hugo, probably making for one of
the best showcases for child acting in recent memory. Thankfully, he hasn’t
lost an inch of his touch, as he portrays Nathan’s social disconnection and
confusion of the world around him expertly. Edward Baker-Close does a terrific
job as the younger Nathan, showing a real-life sense of naivety and freshly
learning about the world that would go on to confuse him later on in life. Rafe
Spall makes for a more rattled mentor role than is usually seen in what is
essentially a sports movie, balancing aloofness with a hint of tragedy
surprisingly well; good to see his experience with Edgar Wright hasn’t gone to
waste.

Detailing a teenager’s social inadequacies is hardly
anything new for the realms of coming-of-age cinema. However, what genuinely
impresses with this film is how honed-in it feels. I’ve seen how adults act
when they are trying to show that they approachable to run-of-the-mill teens,
let alone teens who have diagnosed on the spectrum. This doesn’t carry any of
that hokeyness nor feel like it’s aiming for what it can’t reach. Instead,
through Butterfield’s down-played performance coupled with the atmosphere
afforded him by the camera work, editing and score, we get a real sense of a
kid who doesn’t fit into social circles. The film ties a lot of the actions of
the characters into the idea of patterns and recurrence, beyond just the realm
of mathematics, and how people feel most comfortable when they established
their own. Through Nathan, we see the comfort he takes in solving mathematical
equations, and through Martin, we get something more self-destructive in a
downward spiral with his lack of self-worth and dependency on pharmaceuticals.
We also see how changes in said patterns can affect people who operate so
heavily on routine, like those on the spectrum. Whether it’s seemingly minor
changes, like flying overseas for the first time, or drastically major ones,
like the loss of his father, it is a palpable feeling even for those who can’t
exactly connect with it.

However, the big surprise of the whole production comes
about in the form of one of the side characters, that being Luke Shelton played
by Jake Davies. Now, from his first handful of scenes, he is shown as even more
socially awkward than most others, coming across as cold and inflexible and, if
I’m being honest, a bit of a prick. Really, he kept making me think of the
almost inhuman socializing Sheldon from TBBT would partake in, and God knows
that reminding me of that isn’t going
to help anyone. Then, through a single scene involving him watching an old
Monty Python skit on a computer, there is a total paradigm shift. Being
considered clever brings with it a lot
of pressure to fulfill what is considered to be your obligation to use your
cleverness in schooling. Of course, there’s the fact that we are social
creatures and, regardless of how we may come across, every one of us needs
interaction with other people. If given the chance, I’m willing to bet that
most people would give every bit of intellect they have, if only it meant that
they could get along better with others. Hell, just because they’re in a room
with people that are like them with similar interests, that doesn’t change the
fact that that crippling shyness is still present.

What I’m getting at with all this is that, with how Luke is
portrayed as trying to connect with the other mathletes, it should be
reluctantly relatable for the more introverted audiences out there. Hell, given
how much I’ve been cramming my days full of films to review over the last few
weeks, that feeling of trying (and failing) to connect with people on terms
that you feel most comfortable with really hits home. Through how he reacts to
the pressure of not only succeeding academically, but also in the social
sphere, Luke actually becomes the best character in the film; it’s undeniably
tragic how badly he wants to fit in but, from all outward appearances, he seems
to just hate everyone.

All in all, this is a deeply resonating emotional drama
about the pressures that society places on people to use their God-given
intellect and the attitudes that result from it. The acting is great,
particularly from Butterfield and Davies and the writing portrays social
anxiety brilliantly, balancing out the characters’ evident smarts with their
lack of knowledge about interacting with others. This probably ranks higher
with me because I still remember going through similar situations myself from a
few years back, but that doesn’t negate how well executed the production is as
a whole. It ranks higher than Secrets In Their Eyes, as the romance here feels
a lot better set-up and has a far greater payoff. However, as much as I commend
this film for compassionately portraying what are essentially First Brain
Problems, Lead Me Astray for a more completely enthralling experience as an
overall film.

Friday, 25 December 2015

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, which around
here is going to involve keeping a promise I made about a year ago. Back when I
reviewed Mockingjay Part 1, I brought today’s film and how I wanted to check it
out based on the strength of Josh Hutcherson’s performance. Well, as I inch
closer to the end of my December double feature-fest, I figure now is as good a
time as any to give it a try. This is Escobar: Paradise Lost.

The plot: Canadian surfer Nick (Josh Hutcherson) has moved
to Colombia to help his brother Dylan (Brady Corbet) run a local surf camp. He
soon falls for local girl Maria (Claudia Traisac), whom Nick later finds out is
the niece of local drug runner Pablo Escobar (Benicio Del Toro). As their
relationship grows more serious, Nick gets dragged further down into the world
of crime that is Escobar’s terrain, making him question if the potential
benefits are worth the prices he will have to pay.

This film feels like two separate ideas for the same story
were sewn together at the middle, and they don’t mesh together in the best of
ways nor does the film as a whole commence on the best foot. It basically
starts out like your standard romance that just happens to have Pablo Escobar
involved in it; Benicio Del Toro’s performance is good but, especially when
compared to his work in Sicario earlier this year, it’s nothing too special.
Not only that, Hutcherson as Nick doesn’t leave much of an impression either;
he’s not bad but, for the first half, he just plays spectator for the events
happening around him. His relationship with Maria also feels undercooked,
playing out like yet another teen romance without much meat on the bones.

Then we get past the halfway point, and the film suddenly
picks up tremendously. As we pick back up where the cold opening left off, with
Nick being asked to kill someone, it not only feels like we’ve stepped into a
different movie but a substantially better one as well. The bum-rush pace gains
some stability, making the very dark events that take place feel a lot more
stable. Del Toro’s previously bubbling menace gets pushed over the cliff,
resulting in a genuinely unnerving antagonist. Hutcherson gets to tap into some
proper emotional distress as his character cracks under the pressure of his
circumstances, bringing back shades of what made his performance so strong in
both parts of Mockingjay. This is honestly kind of surprising since the
starting point of the film’s uphill climb, the confrontation between Nick and
the person he has to kill, is a bit wonky. The script bluntly brings up how he
has a wife and child in a bid to make Nick reconsider his actions, and show the
audience what the dangers of what he has to do for Escobar. This would have
been fine if it didn’t feel like it was being brought up solely to raise
dramatic tension, rather than for legitimate character reasons.

Anyway, despite that hollowness, the proceeding hour of film
is really damn good. Hutcherson’s performance as he frantically tries to get to
his family and friends before Escobar’s men do is palpable and very intense.
This is heightened by the direction, which combines fluid movements that show
how Nick evades the cartel with optimal camera work, particularly the framing in
the scene where he has a cover over him as he hides in a car. As we see Nick
make his way from landline to landline, contacting people to try and tell them
to get out of Dodge quickly, the inevitable outcomes for most of them hits like
a brick thanks to the acting that I can’t stop gushing over and Max Richter’s
ideal score. This all leads to a climactic encounter that, while diminished a
bit by the epilogue, serves as a near-perfect finale for the tragic events that
have transpired over the film’s final act.

All in all, while the first half is honestly pretty
underwhelming, the second more than makes up for it as the stakes get raised
and the acting improves alongside them. Hutcherson brings back that intensity
that first grabbed my attention in the Hunger Games films and Del Toro shows
more menace that he has built a healthy reputation for, while the writing
around them shows just how dire Nick’s situation is and what he has to do to
survive. It’s better than Last Cab To Darwin, which also has similar problems
involving inconsistency but this film wins out because all that makes it good
is saved for the end, making the film as a whole worth sitting through.
However, since this really only amounts to a literal half of a good film, it
falls short of Tangerine. Sure, that had tonal issues, but what made that film
work kept working throughout its
running time.

Thursday, 24 December 2015

I’m kind of surprised and, honestly, kind of disappointed
that it’s taken me this long into the
year to talk about another Bollywood movie. Given how we had not one but three
arrive at my local last year, I honestly thought that we’d get more coming in
this year. However, probably as a result of the release drought in response to
no-one wanting to directly to compete with Star Wars, as well as the mass
releases on Christmas Day, this is one of the few new releases that have come
in in the last few weeks. Well, even given my admittedly limited exposure to
Indian cinema, I reckon I’ve taken a look at a semi-decent sample: There was
Kick, which started out shaky but ended up pretty good, there was Happy New Year, which was alright but a bit forgettable, and then there was PK, which was
legitimately surprising in the best way possible. Time to see how today’s film
measures up to the minor experience I’ve had previously: This is Dilwale.

The plot: Veer (Varun Dhawan) is a mechanic who works with
his brother Raj (Shah Rukh Khan), whose repair shop is frequently getting
robbed as well as being shaken down local crime boss King (Boman Irani). He
finds himself falling in love with Ishita (Kriti Sanon) but, because of a
previous incident involving a woman named Meera (Kajol) that ended badly, Raj
doesn’t want him doing anything stupid. In the ensuing conflict, we see both
sides trying to make up/break up the relationships around them.

I had the ‘privilege’ to see this in a theatre where the guy
working the sound system was apparently asleep at the wheel, since the volume
was roughly fifty times louder than any other film I’d seen previously at my
local. I’m just going to chalk that up to a fault with the cinema rather than
the film itself just to be safe, although the sound design in this thing is
extremely annoying regardless of that point. Not since Inspector Gadget have I
heard a film be this obnoxious when it comes to its sound effects; it’s at the
point where they actually think playing the ‘wah-wah-wah’ trombone sans irony
was a good idea. However, even that
would be excusable if it weren’t for the random I-can-only-assumed-to-be-comedic
noises that are littered throughout the film. Of course, this is nothing
compared to what happens during the ‘dramatic’ scenes, where things actually
start to become funny… for a time, at least. There’s a scene that features a
slew of dramatic revelations said one right after the other, and all of them have a dramatic music sting
right after them. These get exceptionally soap-opera in how melodramatic they
are, but they are made even worse by how badly the music wants us to take them
seriously. But even the ironic comedy value is short-lived since, for as funny
as it is the first time they do it, it is significantly less humourous the
tenth or eleventh time it’s done in the space of a single minute.

The premise is pretty convoluted and the star-crossed lovers
aspect has been done to death; however, that isn’t what makes this plot fail.
Instead, it’s because of just how badly the relationships are written, even the
platonic ones. Everyone comes across as incredibly naïve or insultingly
hypocritical towards each other. For some reason, characters are more than
willing to forgive each other for stealing from right under their noses or
nearly getting someone killed. It gets that hokey that I kept expecting one of
them to go full Ferris Bueller and admit that they were faking it; if only this
film was that self-aware. Then there’s the main relationship between Raj and
Meera, which consists mainly of alternating acts of rampant double-crossing,
and then somehow acting surprised when the other person acts cold towards them
for it. Don’t get me wrong, Shah Rukh Khan is very good at badass portrayals of
coldness, as he showed last year with Happy New Year, but it doesn’t work
nearly as well here because of the dickish context it’s given. Then there’s the
classic ‘conflict fuelled by misunderstanding/lie’, which reduces the film to
just being yet another ticking reconciliation clock that makes everything
around it feel like a drag.

Speaking of everything surrounding the main plot, this film
has an extremely weak sense of humour, not to mention desperate. How desperate,
I hope you’re not asking a page full of text? Try “Just because he’s fast
doesn’t mean you have to be furious” and “Dude, where’s my car?” I think my
facepalm in the theatre resonated through the entire cinema, I did it so hard
after hearing those lines. Then there’s the outright bizarre dialogue choices,
like the fence Oscar who talks in a mangled version of rhyming slang; it’s not
funny, it just makes him sound like a Berkshire Hunt. Or the scene that involves
a hefty amount of bullshitting in the form of using whatever is on a nearby TV
to construct their story, because that’s something that needed to be brought
back.

What makes all of this film’s faults that much more
irritating is that, every few scenes, something comes along that actually looks
good. The fight scenes, while a little too flashy in their editing and wonky in
their choreography, are nice and visceral when we actually get them. Raj and
Meera’s five minute date is well shot, looking like something from a stage
production that manages to translate well to film. And the musical numbers,
while a bit lacklustre in terms of the actual music, are definitely shot with a
certain level of ambition and damn good use of landscape. Save for the final sequence
which is played during the credits; it was done in a hurry and, both visually
and aurally, it shows.

All in all, this is a right ol’ mess. The sound design is
shoddy, the acting is very off in places, the properly entertaining moments are
few and far between and the plot is up there with some of the most insipid
rom-coms I’ve had to sit through in the name of these reviews. It is admittedly
good to see Shah Rukh Khan on screen again, and when he gets a chance to he
definitely impresses, but he sadly isn’t enough to rescue the rest of the film
around him. It’s worse than Strange Magic as, while both definitely have their
moments that are unintentionally hilarious, that film didn’t manage to sabotage
itself in that regard whereas this film did. However, since this doesn’t reek
of missed opportunities as the plot doesn’t offer nearly enough of them, it
fares better than Poltergeist.

Wednesday, 23 December 2015

Back when I reviewed Still Alice, I found myself unable to
remove the mental association about SWIMNOT’s involvement in the Twilight
films. Looking back on it, I definitely ended up doing her a disservice and
treated her largely as a punchline. Given her work as Bella Swan, that is probably
to be expected to a certain degree as that is definitely the kind of film
series that is custom-made to damage careers. However, after seeing her
outright impressive turn in American Ultra, I think we’ve reached the point
where she has earned her place as a legitimate actor. So, as we take another
look into this indie Cinderella story, and if that sounds trite forgive me for
picking the most appropriate phrase possible, I’m putting an official embargo
on Twilight jokes. This is Clouds Of Sils Maria.

The plot: Maria (Juliette Binoche) is a famous actress of
stage and screen, having gotten her start in both the play and film versions of
Maloja Snake by Swiss playwright Wilhelm Melchior. However, in the wake of the
sudden news of Wilhelm’s death reaches her shortly before an award ceremony
that he was meant to win, a theatre director approaches her to once again
perform in a rendition of Maloja Snake. Only this time, instead of playing the
younger Sigrid as she did all those years ago, she is to play her older
counterpart Helena. As she reads through her lines with her assistant Valentine
(Kristen Stewart), and comes to terms with the renegade actress Jo-Ann (Chloë
Grace Moretz) that will starring opposite her, she begins to realize just how
much she holds dear when it comes to this role.

Playing around with the boundaries of reality is certainly
nothing new in the realm of film. After all, what is cinema but convincing
people of a false reality for a 90-or-so minute duration? This film does much
the same, only in a refreshingly subtler way than usual. Whenever the line
between fiction and reality is blurred, like with the works of Satoshi Kon or
Charlie Kaufman, it’s done with a psychological bent that is meant to actively
make the audience question what the reality of the film actually is. Here, by
contrast, it’s done in a more immediate sense, meant to directly draw the
audience’s attention to the line while keeping it as distinct as possible.
Basically, the main way it is accomplished here isn’t to confuse the audience;
it’s more to show just how good the actors are, both in and out of the film’s universe.
When Maria and Valentine are doing line reads for the play, through the clever
writing as well as the phenomenal acting from Binoche and Stewart, the
parallels that are drawn make for impressive set pieces. The reason why the
acting works as well as it does is that it makes for incredibly smooth
transitions between them reading lines from the play and them just talking, yet
doesn’t make either line of discussion feel stilted. It’s incredibly natural
both ways, which gives credence to Maria’s abilities as an actress as well as
to the story of the film overall. They even manage to generate comedy out of
the frustration Maria feels about flubbing her lines.

Since the comparison is pretty much inevitable, I’ll make
the one and only Birdman comparison here and now. While Riggan’s ego was about
staying true to himself and doing what he believed was right, Maria’s ego is
about staying true to not only herself but also the legacy of her role. The core
of the film, that being Maria returning to perform a role opposite the one that
made her famous, is a surprisingly prevalent tradition with more classical
actors: John Gielgud went from playing Cassius to the emperor he plotted to
kill in two separate versions of Julius Caesar, and John Hurt went from
protagonist Winston Smith in 1984 to antagonist Adam Sutler in the 1984-esque V
For Vendetta adaptation. Here, through her difficulties in dealing with her
shifted perspective in a story that means something very dear to her, she is
not only dealing with a straight-up mirror of how much time has passed but also
trying to reconcile all of it so that not only her own legacy is upheld, but
also that of the writer/director Wilhelm Melchior.

Then there’s the differing stances on that fictional line on
the other side of the screen, as we see how the audience responds to it. The
centrepiece when it comes to this perspective is through a conversation between
Maria, Valentine, Jo-Ann and her lover Christopher (Johnny Flynn). Both Jo-Ann
and Chris admire Maria, but in different ways. Jo-Ann isolates a film that she
did with Harrison Ford, where her performance was that emotionally effecting
that it is what drove her to become an actress. Chris, on the other hand, brings
up seeing her at a screening of one of her earlier French films and brings something
she said in response to a question that he found inspiring. That lack of bias
when it comes to where and how an artist affects the audience and which is more
important is also shown through how Maria and Valentine react to Jo-Ann’s
latest film, a rather astute send-up of modern superhero flicks. Valentine
shows a certain understanding of Jo-Ann’s character and her emotional woes,
whereas Maria sees it as pop psychology hidden under a patently absurd premise.
Neither of them are right, and neither of them are wrong because they don’t
exist when it comes to the effect of art, particularly cinema. A lot of the
dialogue involves differing interpretations of certain texts, mainly the play
at the centre of everything, and it never comes across like some or any of
these characters were written to abjectly “not get it”; instead, they just give
differing opinions and, in most cases, give adequate reasons for why that is. Even the titles used enforce this: the fictional play Maloja Snake and the actual film Clouds Of Sils Maria are referring to the exact same thing, just worded differently.

There’s also some screen time devoted to different brands of
reality outside of film and theatre. When dealing with a film that focuses on
actor ego, it’d be surprising if it didn’t
deal with celebrity news in one form or another. For the most part, despite how
she’s on screen nearly as much as Stewart or Binoche, it’s centred on Jo-Ann’s
character. We see her attitudes to the paparazzi and the reasons why she is
doing the projects she’s doing, but probably the sharpest point made is how she
is seen by the rest of the world, Maria and Valentine in particular. Jo-Ann,
from how the tabloids, interviews and film panels portray her, is a rebellious
teen in that ex-Disney sort of way; it feels like she’s overcompensating for
some sort of pre-existing image that she wants to shed. However, Valentine
takes an immediate shine to her because of the fact that she is so abrasive
and, after she sees more footage of her online, Maria starts to understand that
mindset and reciprocate it. It definitely mirrors how some people view Kanye
West in today’s day and age: Yeah, he’s an asshole, but some people love him as
this cult of personality because he’s
such an asshole; he’s entertaining in a different way from everyone else. Hell,
so long as an artist keeps making good content, it ultimately doesn’t matter
how they are in the real world; they make works of fiction, not autobiography.

All in all, this film has astounding respect for the art of
acting, both for the artist and the audience. It takes a look at the boundary
between what is real and what is acted out, how they both can affect people on
similar levels and, by film’s end, realize that it ultimately shouldn’t matter
how and where inspiration comes from. As someone who has learnt an awful
lot from the world of fiction, I have immense respect for this kind of message,
especially when it’s delivered with writing this sharp and acting this
resonant. It’s better than Avengers: Age Of Ultron, as no part of this film
felt unfulfilling… save for maybe the ending, which kind of betrays the
approach about not going the abstract route. However, even though both films
are probably on par when it comes to how well they’re written, Mr. Holmes just
hit harder emotionally.

Tuesday, 22 December 2015

It genuinely pains me to do this but, when faced with two
films that I can’t really conjure that strong a stance on, I’m almost forced to
do it. It’s time for a more slapshod double feature review than I ever expected
I would make this month, as I look at The Guest and Far From The Madding Crowd.

The Guest

Dan Stevens has never really struck me as that captivating
an actor. I barely even remember him in A Walk Among The Tombstones and he
didn’t really rise above the one-joke role he was given for The Cobbler. The
only time I can vividly remember a performance of his would be from Night At The Museum 3 as Sir Lancelot, but I’d probably that chalk up to him being
pretty much the only interesting
character in that entire film. Well, I think I need to pay a bit closer
attention to him in future because he is stone-cold fantastic in this film. He
goes through every scene he has in the first two acts like he’s too cool for
the room and knows it: His poise, his calm demeanour, his ability to handle
himself in a fight; he just oozes badass from every pore. Yet, at the same
time, it’s very clear that there is something very off about him; the way he acts
when he’s on his own in the frame, coupled with the awesome 80’s throwback
soundtrack, makes him look like he’s coming up with a dozen ways to kill
everyone within a five-mile radius just in case he needs it. Then the third act
kicks in and, while maintaining his stoic presence, he delves into the more
action film villain side of his character and adds some pants-wetting to the
cooing over just how awesome he is.

After seeing two other so-called ‘thrillers’ with similar
plots about dangerous house guests this year, it’s genuinely nice to know that
there’s a film that actually does it right.
For a start, the acting is strong enough to carry out the idea: Outside of
Stevens embodying charm for 100 minutes, Maika Munroe from It Follows delivers
yet another great performance as the intrigued but cautious Anna and Brendan Meyer
works really damn well as the rather nuanced Luke. Luke’s character and his
reaction to the truth about David, in a weird way, echoes how the audience is
experiencing the events of the film: He doesn’t try and deny that David is a
bad guy, but he’s just that cool that he’s willing to overlook it to remain his
friend.

For another, the plot follows a reasonable progression and,
while getting a bit cluttered in the third act, works nicely as one of the few
action-thrillers that’s come out recently that actually pays off on both ends.
It doesn’t have any of the hokey or just plain hateful characterization that
plagued those other films. The thrills are stable and quite gripping, even
during the bizarre haunted house sequence at the end, and the action scenes are
hard-hitting and rather brutal, yet never get too gratuitous and exploitative;
it hits that sweet spot. It also benefits from not trying to completely detail
David’s backstory, going into just enough detail to have it make sense but not
to the point of bogging the film down. Given how a previous cut of the film did detail it further, while I do admit
being a bit curious, that lack of mystique might have made me appreciate David
Collins slightly less.

Probably this film’s greatest strength, aside from Stevens,
is its dark sense of humour. Part of why David’s character works as well as it
does is that the script has enough awareness to not take itself too seriously.
Probably the biggest example of this, and also the funniest moment in the film,
is when Laura and David meet with Luke’s school principal. Without spoiling it,
it kind of plays like more anti-PC gold that is delivered and written
brilliantly. Between that, the aforementioned haunted house and the in-universe
character who follows real-world logic of rooting for the villain despite how
scummy he is (until he just goes too damn far), it’s tongue-in-cheek enough to
allow for actual fun without pretending to be smarter than it is, yet mature
enough to make the scarier moments work.

All in all, this is a very fun action thriller, with a solid
cast and expert balancing of both the flashier fight scenes and the tenser
suspenseful moments. All the points go to Dan Stevens, whose portrayal of David
feels like the Jason Statham role that we should
have gotten in The Transporter Refueled but never did. It’s better than While We’re Young which, despite being a bit deeper in terms of writing, isn’t as
consistently good as this was; no cheapness to undermine it. However, even if
the main character isn’t nearly as good, American Ultra made for a more
entertaining watch overall.

Far From The Madding Crowd

There’s a recurring trend among filmmakers with lower-than-low-budget
beginnings that, once they start being given reasonable wallets to work with,
they probably make the best use of it of all their peers. Think Peter Jackson's Braindead beginnings, and then look at how he handled Tolkien. Enter Thomas
Vinterberg, probably best remembered for his contributions to the Dutch
filmmaking movement Dogme 95, who does a masterful job at staging every single scene in this film. From
the set locations to the costuming to the wide use of space to show off the
beautiful countryside, this is a drop-dead gorgeous looking production. I mean,
when even a simple scene of a man walking on a beach front looks like it had
very clear time and effort put into it, credit needs to be given where it’s
due. This also goes for the cast, particularly Carey Mulligan who does a great
job as Bethsheba. Even if it feels like certain dramatic opportunities haven’t
been afforded her, she embodies the ahead-of-its-time strong female character
that Thomas Hardy was best known for; certainly does better than the last time
she portrayed the female lead in a film based on a classic work of literature.
I swear, I don’t think I’ll ever
forgive Baz Luhrmann for his butchering of The Great Gatsby.

And speaking of actors from far lesser adaptations of
novels, we have Michael Sheen as one of Bethsheba’s male suitors. As much as I
applaud this more theatrical actor for showing his skills in something that isn’t
Twilight: Breaking Dawn, I really hate to admit it but I liked him better in
Breaking Dawn. Don’t get me wrong, he’s far better written here and acted with
a lot more dignity, but he doesn’t have nearly as much impact here as he
should. And, at the end of the day, that’s the biggest problem this film has:
For as immaculately produced and well-acted this film is, it really doesn’t
leave that much of a lasting impression. I’ll freely admit that I’m not as
familiar with the original novel as I am with Hardy’s other masterpiece Tess Of
The D’Urbervilles, having studied it like so many other high school students
did, but this story doesn’t feel like it has the immediacy that it should. Just
glancing at the CliffNotes for the novel, because let’s face it everyone with
access to the Internet did when they were looking at it, the story shows a lot of promise for drama/melodrama that
isn’t cashed in on. Juno Temple’s Fanny Robbin is probably the best realized
character, embodying the sense of tragedy and unfairness that pervades the era,
but even then the obvious reactions to what happens to her aren’t shown.

All in all, while undeniably well made, it just barely
registers out of a certain lack of narrative direction and just good acting.
That last one particularly sucks because, having seen them in other works, the
cast here is genuinely capable of making this work. It’s better than Ricki And The Flash, as this doesn’t have nearly as many narrative progression issues.
However, purely in terms of engagement, Oddball honestly made for a more
fulfilling watch, goofiness and all.